iEx  Htbrtfi 


SEYMOUR  DURST 


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THE  SOCIETY  OF 
ICONOPH1LES  OF 
NEW  YORK 


101  IMPRESSIONS  OF  THESE  ENGRAVINGS  HAVE 
BEEN  TAKEN  AND  THE  PLATES  DESTROYED 
ALL  IMPRESSIONS  ARE  ON  JAPAN  PAPER 
I  1   BEING  ARTIST  S   PROOFS   BEFORE  LETTER 


this  book  there  have  been  made  eighty- 
seven  copies  on  Imperial  Japan  paper 
and  six  copies  on  American  hand-made 
paper,  the  printing  of  which  was 
completed  in  the  month  of  January 

MDCCCXCVII. 


THE  JOURNEY  OF 
THE  ICONOPHILES 


THE  JOURNEY  OF 
THE  ICONOPHILES 

AROUND  NEW  YORK  IN  SEARCH  OF 
THE    HISTORICAL   AND  PICTURESQUE 


PRINTED  AT  NEW  YORK 

IN  THE  YEAR  OF  OUR  LORD,  EIGHTEEN 
HUNDRED  AND  NINETY-SEVEN  .  .  .  AND 
OF  THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  ISLAND  OF 
MANHATTAN  BY  HENDRIK  HUDSON  THE 
TWO     HUNDRED     AND  EIGHTY-EIGHTH 


COPYRIGHT,     1897,  BY 
WILLIAM   LORING  ANDREWS 


A  DESCRIPTION  OF 
THE  FRONTISPIECE 

THE    "AMBUSCADE"    PICTURE  OF 
THE  BATTERY 


THE  picture  I  have  selected  for  a  frontis- 
piece is  engraved  on  copper  by  Mr. 
E.  D.  French,  after  a  scarce  print  engraved 
by  S.  Hill,*  from  a  drawing  made  on  the 
spot  in  1793  by  Governor  John  Drayton,  of 
South  Carolina,  as  he  states  in  his  "  Tour  in 
the  Northern  and  Eastern  States,"  published 
at  Charleston  in  1794. 

"  At  the  lower  end  of  Broadway  is  the 
Battery  and  public  parade  of  which  I  have  al- 
ready given  you  some  account ;  and  I  now 
present  you  with  a  sketch  of  it,  as  seen  from 
this  spot.  While  1  was  taking  it  the  Am- 
buscade sailed  by,  having  a  liberty  cap  on  the 
fore-top-gallant  mast-head.     I  drew  it  with 

*  Note.  The  engraver  of  the  prints  in  the  Massachusetts 
Magazine. 

vii 


A    DESCRIPTION   OF  THE  FRONTISPIECE 

pleasure,  hoping  that  it  would  be  an  ornament 
to  the  piece." 

To  the  best  of  my  knowledge  this  picture 
is  the  earliest  view  of  the  Battery  from  the 
land  side,  and  the  only  print  that  shows  this 
point  of  the  island  except  from  the  water,  as 
it  appeared  after  the  removal  of  Fort  George 
and  before  the  erection  of  the  present  Castle 
Garden,*  u  e.>  between  the  years  1790  and 
1810. 

"  L'Ambuscade,"  which  sailed  by  at  so 
opportune  a  moment  for  Governor  Drayton, 
was  the  French  Frigate  which  brought  Min- 
ister Genet  to  America.  It  was  afterwards 
stationed  for  a  time  off  the  port  of  New  York, 
and  on  the  30th  of  July,  1793,  had  an  en- 
counter off  Sandy  Hook  with  the  British 
frigate  "  Boston,"  in  which  the  latter  was  dis- 
abled, but  escaped  capture  and  bore  away  for 
Halifax. 

If  the  date  of  this  picture  were  not  known 

*  Note.  First  known  as  the  S.  W.  Battery,  afterwards  named 
Castle  Clinton. 

viii 


A    DESCRIPTION   OF   THE  FRONTISPIECE 

it  could  be  fixed  approximately  by  the  flag 
which  floats  from  the  staff  upon  the  stone 
tower.  This  displays  the  thirteen  stars  ar- 
ranged in  a  circle,  the  form  adopted  in  1777 
and  not  altered  until  1795  when  it  was  changed 
to  fifteen  stars  placed  in  three  parallel  lines. 
This  is  the  flag-staff  to  which  Diedrich  Knick- 
erbocker refers  in  his  "  History  of  New  York" 
and  likens  to  the  handle  to  a  gigantic  churn. 

W.  L.  A. 


IX 


PLATES    ISSUED    BY  THE 
SOCIETY  OF  THE 
ICONOPHILES 


st.  Paul's  chapel 
ii 

the  chancel  of  st.  paul's  chapel 

m 

FRAUNCES's  TAVERN 

IV 

THE  ROGER  MORRIS  HOUSE 
v 

THE  HAMILTON  GRANGE 

VI 

ST.  mark's  CHURCH 
vii 

THE  CITY  HALL 

VIII 

THE  HALLS  OF  JUSTICE  "THE  TOMBS  " 

IX 

THE  NATIONAL  ACADEMY   OF  DESIGN 

x 

st.  John's  chapel 

XI 

THE  FORTY-SECOND   STREET  DISTRIBUTING 
RESERVOIR 

XII 

THE  BOWLING  GREEN 


THE  JOURNEY  OF 
THE  ICONOPHILES 





THE  JOURNEY  OF 
THE  ICONOPHILES 

AROUND  NEW  YORK  IN  SEARCH  OF 
THE    HISTORICAL  AND  PICTURESQUE 

IT  is  quite  evident,  we  think,  that  the 
worthy  citizens  of  this  Metropolis  of 
sixty  years  ago  gloried  in  the  past, 
present  and  future  of  their  city  to  an 
extent  and  after  a  fashion  unknown  to  their  de- 
scendants of  to-day.  This  might  perhaps 
be  considered  indicative  of  a  provincial  state 
of  society,  the  members  of  which,  not  hav- 
ing enjoyed  to  any  large  extent  the  inesti- 
mable advantages  of  foreign  travel  (so  com- 
mon a  means  of  culture  in  these  days  of  "  per- 
sonally conducted  tours"  to  every  known  spot 
on  earth),  were  altogether  incompetent  judges 
of  municipal  greatness  and  grandeur. 

Again,  it  is  conceivable  that  the  men  who 
met  on  'Change  in  swallow-tailed  coats,  and 
whose  afternoon  promenade  was  confined  to 

3 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

that  stretch  of  Broadway  which  extended  from 
Chambers  Street  to  the  Battery,  were  not  quite 
so  intent  upon  money  getting  as  succeeding 
generations  more  unreservedly  devoted  to  the 
pursuit  of  wealth  have  grown  to  be  ;  and  that 
they  allowed  themselves  leisure  for  the  quiet 
contemplation  and  enjoyment  of  the  sur- 
roundings of  the  simpler  manner  of  life  in  the 
primitive  times  in  which  their  lot  was  cast 
when  a  hundred  thousand  of  our  units  of  value 
made  their  possessor  passing  rich ;  all  of 
which  would  conduce  to  a  self-laudatory  as  well 
as  to  a  calm  and  philosophical  frame  of  mind. 
We  have  also  to  remember  the  fact  that  down  to 
the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  war,  New  York  was  in 
sooth  a  city  of  homes,  occupied  by  their  own- 
ers the  greater  part  of  the  twelvemonth,  if  not 
all  the  year  round,  save  when  an  epidemic  or 
cholera,  smallpox,  or  yellow  fever  drove  them 
forth  to  some  quiet  country  place  necessarily 
near  at  hand  on  account  of  the  limited  travel- 
ing facilities  that  then  existed.    In  those  anti- 


THE  JOURNEY  OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

bellum  times  no  Newport  with  its  princely 
seaside  villas,  no  Lenox  with  palatial  man- 
sions crowning  its  breezy  hill  tops  divided 
the  affections  and  the  time  of  "  Gotham's  " 
"  best  society,"  while  now  New  York  has  its 
"  season  "  as  fixed  and  circumscribed  as  that  of 
London,  Paris,  or  any  other  gay  capital  city 
through  which  the  votaries  of  fashion  must 
whirl  at  the  appointed  time  or  not  at  all. 

We  indulge  in  the  by  no  means  univer- 
sally accepted  belief  that  our  city  in  the  first 
half  of  the  century  was  decidedly  more  at- 
tractive architecturally  than  it  subsequently 
became  after  it  had  passed  into  the  shadow 
of  the  "  brown-stone  age"  The  high-peaked, 
tiled  roofs  and  gable  ends,  with  stepping- 
stones  to  facilitate  the  descent  of  Kris  Kringle 
with  his  toy-laden  pack,  had  not  all  disap- 
peared ;  and  the  buildings  that  were  gradually 
supplanting  these  remnants  of  the  old  Dutch 
regime  were  of  the  so-called  Colonial  order, 
the  greatest  charm  of  which  was  its  simplicity 
5 


L 


THE  JOURNEY  OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

and  unpretentiousness.  They  were  constructed 
of  the  best  of  honest  red  brick — set  off  in 
the  better  class  of  dwellings  by  marble,  granite 
or  brown-stone  trimmings  ;  and  presented  to 
the  gaze  of  the  passer-by  the  Corinthian  pil- 
lared doorways,  graceful  fanlights,  and  wrought 
iron  newel  posts  for  which  as  models  of  con- 
struction we  still  seek,  if  haply  we  may  find 
them,  in  some  now  obscure  quarter  of  the  town 
long  ago  abandoned  by  both  wealth  and  re- 
spectability. 

Anon  there  came  a  time  when,  lack  a  day  ! 
a  stone  quarry  was  unearthed  up  in  the  valleys 
of  a  neighboring  state,  and  to  the  manufac- 
ture of  wooden  bowls,  the  concoction  of  ap- 
ple sweetmeats,  and  the  cultivation  of  Weath- 
ersfield  onions,  the  people  of  that  thriving  com- 
monwealth added  a  new  and  lucrative  industry. 
Straightway  an  avalanche  of  free-stone  de- 
scended upon  this  defenceless  town  and  for 
more  than  half  a  century  continued  its  head- 
long rush.  When  Macaulay's  far-famed  New 

6 


THE  JOURNEY  OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

Zealander  stops  here  on  his  way  to  visit  the 
ruins  of  London  Bridge,  and  wandering  amid 
the  debris  of  New  York  notes  the  profusion 
of  this  non-indigenous  stone,  we  know  not 
how  he  will  account  for  the  phenomenon  ex- 
cept by  ascribing  it  to  a  glacial  moraine. 

Whoever  was  responsible  for  the  introduc- 
tion into  this  city  of  the  brown-stone  of  Con- 
necticut, it  certainly  met  with  immediate  and 
general  favor  and  speedily  became  the  ma- 
terial for  the  exterior  front  wall  of  a  house, 
which  no  family  of  wealth  and  standing  in  the 
community  could  afford  to  be  without — not 
because  of  its  beauty  of  color  or  texture,  but  for 
the  apparently  sufficient  reason  that  it  was 
more  costly  than  the  durable  red  Philadelphia 
brick  heretofore  in  vogue.  The  sounding 
phrase  "  high-stoop  brown-stone  front,"  be- 
came expressive  of  all  that  was  choicest  and 
most  to  be  coveted  in  a  "  house  in  town." 
Architect  and  builder  alike  seemed  intent  upon 
demonstrating  the  variety  of  inartistic  forms 

7 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

into  which  this  somber-looking  and  perish- 
able stone  could  be  contorted,  and  the  amount 
of  meaningless  ornament  it  would  bear  with- 
out chipping  under  exposure  to  the  elements 
before  the  building  could  be  sold.  One  wan- 
dered through  weary  leagues  of  streets  (miles 
of  which  are  still  unchanged,  except  that  the 
walls  which  line  them  display  various  stages 
of  disintegration  and  sundry  ingenious  styles 
of  patch-work)  with  brown-stone  fronts  to  the 
right  of  him,  brown-stone  fronts  to  the  left  of 
him.  When  for  relief  from  this  dull  and  in- 
sipid uniformity  we  turned  to  the  green  fields 
of  the  adjacent  country  side,  it  was  to  be  con- 
fronted with  an  equally  distressing  example  of 
false  taste — the  suburban  villa  of  the  "  Hudson 
River  School  of  Architecture,"  in  the  super- 
ornamentation  of  which  the  scroll-saw  played 
so  prominent  and  indispensable  a  part. 

Slowly  during  the  last  two  decades  we  have 
been  emerging  from  this  Cimmerian  architec- 
tural darkness,  and  have  begun  to  appreciate 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

the  force  of  what  we  are  venturesome  enough 
to  hold  to  be  two  fundamental  and  axiomatic 
truths — namely,  that  the  house  simple  may 
still  be  the  house  beautiful,  and  that  we  can- 
not with  impunity  play  with  the  delicately 
edged  tools  of  the  Fine  Arts.  There  is,  in  our 
firm  belief,  no  midway  halting  place  between 
the  severely  plain  application  and  the  highest 
possible  expression  of  the  arts  we  elect  to  em- 
ploy in  the  building  of  our  homes.  Cheap 
art  is  a  misnomer.  It  is  sham  art — a  delusion 
and  a  snare.  Therefore,  unless  cost  is  alto- 
gether a  secondary  consideration,  and  not  then 
unless  the  designing  and  construction  of  our 
dwelling  can  be  placed  under  the  guidance  of 
a  master  hand,  the  simpler  we  make  our  abid- 
ing place  the  more  heart's  ease  and  peace  of 
mind  will  be  our  portion  when  we  come  to  rest 
under  the  vine  and  fig  tree  our  hands  have 
planted. 

That  New  York  fifty  years  ago  was  as 
well  paved,  well  sewered,  well  lighted,  or  in 

9 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

many  respects  so  desirable  a  city  to  dwell  in 
as  it  is  to-day,  it  would  be  absurd  to  claim  ;  but 
our  contention  that  its  streets  offered  a  more 
attractive  field  for  the  artist  then  than  now,  is, 
we  think,  supported  by  the  fact  that  when  we 
moderns  sally  forth  in  search  of  the  pictur- 
esque we  do  not  seem  to  find  it  short  of  the 
portals  of  a  building  of  that  earlier  period. 
Twenty  years  hence,  when  the  structures  now 
going  up  in  our  midst  shall  have  felt  the  sof- 
tening touch  of  time,  New  York  will  furnish 
better  material  for  the  artist's  pencil.  Just 
now  it  is  all  too  new  and  spic  and  span  ;  but 
to  borrow  the  phraseology  while  we  twist  the 
meaning  of  one  of  the  "  bon  mots  "  of  the 
great  but  erratic  Whistler,  "  Art  is  creeping 
up  "  among  us. 

In  1 83 1  G,  M.  Bourne  published  a  col- 
lection of  views  in  New  York,  thirty-five  in 
number,  beautifully  drawn  by  C.  Burton  and 
artistically  engraved  by  Hatch  &  Smillie.  The 
India  paper  proofs  of  these  engravings  form 
10 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

the  most  charming  series  of  little  pictures  of 
New  York  that  exist.  The  original  drawings 
for  these  plates  by  Burton  are  in  the  N.  Y. 
Historical  Society,  presented  to  that  institu- 
tion by  the  late  Stephen  Whitney  Phcenix. 

In  the  same  year,  1831,  Peabody  &  Co.J 
issued  a  series  similar  to  the  above,  dedicated 
by  permission  to  Philip  Hone,  Esq.,  consist- 
ing of  thirty-two  views  engraved  by  Dick, 
Barnard,  Fossette,  Archer  and  others,  after 
drawings  by  the  architect  Dakin.  This  liter- 
ary and  artistic  venture  was  heartily  endorsed 
and  highly  commended  by  the  press  of  the 
day.  The  following  criticism,  which  would 
apply  with  equal  force  and  justice  to  Bourne's 
work,  is  taken  from  the  "  New  York  Evening 
Journal  " : 

"  The  execution  of  this  beautiful  specimen 
of  American  skill  reflects  the  highest  credit 
upon  the  artists  by  whom  the  views  were 
drav/n  and  engraved,  upon  the  printer,  upon 
the  author  of  the  descriptive  sketches  accom- 


1 1 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

panying  the  plates,  and  all  others  concerned. 
It  is  proposed  to  continue  the  publication  in 
numbers  at  brief  intervals,  and  at  a  rate  so 
low  (37^  cents  each  number  containing  four 
plates)  that  the  publishers  cannot  be  adequately 
remunerated  without  an  extensive  sale,  which 
we  hope  for  the  honor  of  the  city  they  will 
readily  obtain." 

These  publications  of  Bourne  and  Pea- 
body  were  succeeded  in  1 847  by  a  series  of  thir- 
teen plates,  published  by  C.  B.  &  F.  B.  Nich- 
ols,6 in  two  parts,  containing  six  views  each, 
in  addition  to  the  frontispiece  in  Part  I.  It 
is  possible  that  there  may  have  been  further 
issues  of  this  publication,  but  I  have  not  en- 
countered them.  Doubtless  a  continuation 
of  the  series  was  intended,  but  the  venture  ap- 
parently failed  to  receive  adequate  support. 

A  number  of  the  views  published  by  C. 
B.  &.  F.  B.  Nichols — to  which  half  a  dozen 
new  ones  were  added — were  used  by  Prall, 
Lewis  &  Co.  in  a  book  published  by  them  in 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

1 85 1 ,  entitled,  "  New  York  :  Past,  Present  and 
Future."  7  This  brought  about  a  confusing 
state  of  affairs  in  the  print  market  and  laid 
another  pitfall  for  the  unwary  feet  of  the  col- 
lector. Now,  when  he  chances  upon  these 
engravings  apart  from  the  books  to  which  they 
belong,  he  finds  himself  in  a  quandary  as  to 
whether  they  are  of  the  true  vintage  of  1 847 
or  only  the  adulterated  article  furnished  by 
the  firm  of  Prall,  Lewis  &  Co. 

In  1835,  J-  Disturnell  began  the  publica- 
tion of  a  series  of  views  entitled  the  "  Pictur- 
esque Beauties  of  the  Hudson  River  and  its 
Vicinity,"  from  original  drawings  engraved  on 
steel  by  distinguished  artists,  with  descriptions 
by  Samuel  L.  Knapp.  Whether  the  voyage 
was  originally  planned  to  extend  up  the  Hud- 
son to  Albany  or  not  we  do  not  know,  but 
that  the  craft  which  bore  these  "  distinguished 
artists  "  never  dropped  out  of  sight  of  the 
Palisades  we  do  know,  much  to  our  regret. 
Two  numbers  only  of  this  publication  ever 

»3 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

appeared,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  dis- 
cover. Each  number  contained  three  full-page 
engravings  (7^x4%  inches  in  size),  besides 
the  frontispiece,  which  appeared  in  part  I. 
The  subjects,  all  of  which  furnish  what  would 
be  designated  by  the  New  York  collector  as 
useful  prints,  are  as  follows  :  Bay  and  Har- 
bor of  New  York,  Hoboken,  Hellgate,  New 
York  from  Staten  Island,  The  Narrows,  Wee- 
hawken,The  Palisades  (vignette-frontispiece). 
These  prints  are  all  well  executed  and  most 
of  them  are  very  charming  examples  of  the 
art  of  steel  engraving. 

Along  in  the  '30s  Disturnell  published  a 
number  of  little  guide  books  under  the  vari- 
ous titles  of  the  "  Travelers  Guide,"  "  New 
York  as  it  is,"  "  The  Picturesque  Tourist," 
and  the  "  Pocket  Annual."  The  plates  en- 
graved for  these  publications  were  resurrected 
forty  years  later  and  employed  in  the  illustra- 
tion of  "  New  York  as  it  is  and  as  it  was  " — 
a  work  published  by  D.  Van  Nostrand  in 

«4 


THE  JOURNEY  OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

1876.  Still  more  recently  these  way-worn 
veterans  were  again  drafted  into  service,  and  im- 
pressions from  the  plates  (taken  on  "  French 
India  paper  ")  were  issued  in  sets,  comprising 
ten  different  views  and  perhaps  more,  which 
have  not  come  under  my  notice.  Still  another 
publication  of  Disturnell's,  interesting  to  New 
York  collectors,  but  one  which  takes  us  a  little 
out  of  our  present  beat,  was  a  Panorama  of  the 
Hudson  River  from  New  York  to  Albany  in 
1846,  drawn  by  William  Wade,  carefully  en- 
graved on  copper  and  colored  by  hand — the 
good,  honest,  old-fashioned  way  of  doing 
things. 

Blunt's  "Stranger's  Guide,"  4  18 17,  fur- 
nishes six,  and  Goodrich's  "  Picture  of  New 
York,"  5  1828,  seven  small  views  in  our  city 
streets,  some  of  which  are  not  included  in  any 
other  series. 

The  "  New  York  Mirror,"  1  that  popular 
journal  of  the  early  part  of  this  century,  styled 
by  one  of  its  editors,  perhaps  half  in  earnest 

*5 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

and  half  in  jest,  "  The  organ  of  the  Upper 
Ten,"  which  numbered  among  the  contributors 
to  its  columns  all  the  great  literary  lights  of  the 
day,  supplied  its  patrons  with  a  number  of  the 
best  engraved  and  most  interesting  pictures  of 
contemporary  New  York  that  are  to  be  found. 
Many  of  them  are  from  drawings  by  the  well- 
known  architect,  A.  J.  Davis,  whose  death  at 
an  advanced  age  occurred  not  many  years 
since.  Hinton's  History  of  the  United  States, 
1830,  contains  a  few  engravings  (quarto)  of 
our  prominent  buildings,  among  them  Colum- 
bia College,  The  Merchants'  Exchange  and 
Colman's  Literary  rooms  at  the  corner  of 
Broadway  and  Park  Place  (a  building  erected 
in  1792  by  the  General  Society  of  Mechanics 
and  Tradesmen,  which,  I  believe,  still  owns 
this  valuable  property).  W.  H.  Bartlett/s 
"American  Scenery,"  London,  1840,  includes 
a  few  views  in  and  around  New  York ;  and 
a  New  York  illustration  may  be  found  here 
and  there  in  one  of  those  little  volumes  pop- 


ST. MARKS  |j$!3?2  CHURCH. 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

ular  fifty  years  ago  as  gift  books  and  souvenirs 
— such  as  "  The  Talisman,"  "  The  Token  " 
and  "  The  Keepsake" — a  class  of  books  now 
coming  into  demand  with  collectors  for  the 
examples  of  early  American  art  they  contain 
and  also  as  representatives  of  a  style  of  book- 
making  (copied  after  the  English  "  Annual  " 
of  the  same  period)  that  went  out  of  fashion 
so  long  since  that  it  has  become  an  antiquated 
and  almost  forgotten  type  of  the  art. 

Among  miscellaneous  prints  illustrating 
New  York  fifty  years  or  more  ago,  we  select 
the  following  as  noteworthy  on  account  of 
their  rarity  and  the  excellence  of  the  engrav- 
ing :  "  Astor  House,  Broadway,  New  York," 
and  "  Old  Methodist  Church  on  John  Street," 
drawn  and  engraved  by  A.Dick ; "  Weehawken 
Bluffs,"  engraved  by  Barnard,  after  a  sketch  by 
Davis  ;  "  Trinity  (old)  Church,  New  York," 
(size  1 1  x8  )  drawn  and  engraved  by  J.  A. 
Rolph.  This  is  the  most  beautiful  as  well  as 
the  rarest  of  all  the  engravings  of  the  second 
17 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

edifice  (built  1788  and  taken  down  1839) 
erected  by  the  Trinity  Church  Corporation. 

Those  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  class  of 
prints  we  have  enumerated  in  the  foregoing 
pages  will  be  surprised  to  find  upon  examina- 
tion how  really  artistic  most  of  them  are  and 
what  adepts  were  the  men  (many  of  them 
painter-engravers  like  Asher  B.  Durand)  by 
whom  these  plates  were  executed.  In  point 
of  fact  the  work  of  this  coterie  of  artists  marks 
the  culmination  of  the  art  of  line  engraving  in 
this  country. 

We  are  thus,  it  will  be  seen,  well  supplied 
with  line  engravings  representing  our  street 
architecture  as  it  existed  between  the  years 
1 81 5  and  1850 — the  field  was  a  limited  one 
and  is  quite  covered  by  the  publications  we 
have  mentioned ; — but  he  who  seeks  for  pic- 
tures of  New  York  executed  since  the  latter 
date  will  find  comparatively  few  copper  or  steel 
plate  engravings  save  those  made  for  frontis- 
pieces or  advertising  purposes,  and  occasion- 
18 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

ally  a  bank  note  engraver's  proof  which  con- 
tains a  local  view.  No  series  as  complete  or 
artistic  as  those  of  Bourne  and  Peabody  has 
made  its  appearance  since  they  were  issued. 
The  art  of  lithography  has  partially  filled  this 
gap  ;  and  D.  T.  Valentine,  who  employed  this 
process  almost  exclusively  for  the  full-page 
illustrations  in  his  Manual,  has  bequeathed  us 
a  quantity  of  views,  both  ancient  and  modern, 
in  and  around  New  York,  which  we  are  glad 
to  have  in  default  of  better.  The  etcher's 
needle  also  essayed  for  a  time  the  work  of 
the  graver.  Neither  was  the  wood  engraver 
standing  by  with  folded  hands  ;  but  finally 
these  ancient  and  honorable  crafts  one  and  all 
succumbed  to  the  pressure  exerted  by  the 
camera  with  its  numerous  progeny  of  pro- 
cesses. Now  we  have  a  surfeit  of  pictures  pen- 
ciled by  the  sun — good,  bad  and  indifferent ; 
but  to  whatever  degree  of  excellence  pho- 
tography may  attain,  its  limitations  we  claim 
are  as  defined  and  immutable  as  those  of  any 
19 


THE  JOURNEY    OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

other  mechanical  art.  That  the  most  highly 
perfected  photographic  process  yet  invented 
is  capable  of  producing  a  work  of  art  in  the 
high  sense  of  the  term,  we  are  not  willing  to 
admit ;  nor  will  it  be  until  some  ray  has  been 
discovered  more  weird  and  potent  than  that  of 
Rontgen,  which  can  transmit  to  the  sensitized 
plate  in  its  dark  recess  the  creative  mental 
faculty  itself  as  well  as  the  image  of  the  thing 
created.  Until  that  day  dawns  the  camera 
will  continue  to  perform  its  appointed  tasks 
like  the  obedient  but  senseless  automaton  that 
it  is,  and  nothing  more. 

It  was  in  emulation  of  and  to  supplement, 
as  far  as  might  be,  these  publications  of  Bourne 
and  Peabody  that  the  Society  of  Iconophiles 
was  founded  in  1 895  and  set  itself  to  the  pleas- 
ant task  of  picturing  New  York  as  it  is  in  the 
closing  years  of  the  century,  while  incidentally 
it  hoped  to  revive  an  interest  in  and  to  en- 
courage the  practice  of  the  long  neglected  art 
of  pure  line  engraving. 

20 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

The  Society  has  issued,  up  to  the  present 
time,  twelve  plates  of  subjects  selected  for 
their  historical  and,  as  far  as  possible,  pictorial 
value.  It  began  with  time-honored  St.  Paul's, 
the  oldest  of  our  ecclesiastical  edifices  (opened 
for  divine  worship  on  the  30th  of  October, 
1766).  The  many  earlier  views  of  this  build- 
ing, beginning  with  the  first  and  rarest — the 
one  published  in  the  New  York  Magazine  in 
1 795 — have  been  taken,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, from  the  Broadway  side.  This  of  the 
Iconophiles  is  a  view  from  Vesey  street  and 
shows  the  front  of  the  chapel  (facing  the  North 
river)  and  a  portion  of  the  graveyard  where, 
undisturbed  by  the  countless  throngs  that 
daily  hurry  past  the  enclosure,  St.  Paul's  old 
parishioners  sleep  on,  under  the  "  easie  earth 
that  covers  them."  It  is  a  winter's  landscape 
and  the  leafless  branches  of  the  trees  permitted 
our  artist  to  depict  the  architectural  details  of 
the  fine  old  structure  and  the  graceful  spire 
which  we  have  lived  to  see  far  overtopped  by 
2 1 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

a  building  devoted  to  secular  uses.  St.  Paul's 
was  designed  by  a  Mr.  McBean,  a  Scotchman, 
who  is  said  to  have  been  a  pupil  of  James 
Gibbs,  the  architect  of  the  London  Church  of 
St.  Martins-in-the-Fields,  which  took  the 
place  of  the  structure  of  the  same  name 
wherein  Archbishop  Tenison  once  preached 
a  "  notable  sermon  in  praise  of  Ellen  Gwyn." 
St.  Paul's  resembles  in  some  of  its  exterior 
and  interior  features  St.  Martins-in-the- 
Fields,  which  is  considered  one  of  the  finest 
of  the  London  churches  of  its  age  and  class. 

Publication  No.  2  opens  the  doors  of  this 
ancient  and  venerable  edifice  and  affords  a  view 
of  the  chancel  with  the  pulpit  standing  on  the 
north  side  of  the  choir  to  which  it  had  been 
removed  in  1879,  as  noted  in  the  short  de- 
scription of  the  plates,  printed  on  the  wrapper 
which  accompanies  each  issue  of  the  Society. 
Other  changes  that  have  taken  place  from 
time  to  time  in  the  interior  of  St.  Paul's  are 
noted  by  Dr.  Morgan  Dix  in  his  "  Historical 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

Recollections  of  the  Chapel,"  who  also  re- 
counts the  number  of  times  that  the  building 
has  been  threatened  with  destruction  by  fire. 
First  in  1776  in  the  great  fire,  which  consumed 
about  one-eighth  of  the  city, including  Trinity 
Church.  Second,  in  1799,  by  a  fire  in  Vesey 
street,  during  which  the  steeple  of  St.  Paul's 
was  in  flames.  Third  and  fourth,  in  1820 
and  1 848,  when  for  the  first  and  second  times 
Park  Theatre,  in  Park  Row,  was  burnt ;  and 
fifth,  in  1865  at  the  burning  of  Barnum's 
American  Museum,  which  then  occupied  the 
present  site  of  the  new  twenty-five  storied  St. 
Paul  Building  (307  feet  high)  on  the  corner 
of  Broadway  and  Ann  street.  With  so  many 
towering  fire-proof  structures  in  the  neighbor- 
hood to  protect  it,  the  custodians  of  St.  Paul's 
should  sleep  more  quietly  o'nights,  and  enjoy 
a  feeling  of  security  from  attacks  of  the  fire 
fiend  which  heretofore  they  have  not  known. 
Publication  No.  3  is  a  view  of  Fraunces's 
Tavern  on  the  south-east  corner  of  Broad  and 


*3 


THE  JOURNEY    OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

Pearl  streets.  So  much  has  been  said  and 
written  of  late  years  concerning  this  building 
and  it  has  been  brought  into  such  prominence 
by  "  Sons  of  the  Revolution  "  and  other  pa- 
triotic bodies,  that  the  very  gamins  of  the 
street  should  be  familiar  with  the  succession  of 
historical  events  that  have  made  the  tavern, 
kept  by  Samuel  Fraunces,  ex-steward  in  the 
household  of  President  Washington,  famous 
for  all  time. 

Publication  No.  4. — For  the  subject  of 
this  plate  the  artist  to  the  Society,  Mr.  E. 
Davis  French,  traversed  nearly  the  entire 
length  of  the  island  until  he  entered  the  gate- 
way to  the  Roger  Morris  House.  This  relict 
of  pre-revolutionary  times  is  described  as  fol- 
lows in  the  brief  account  prefixed  to  the  plate  : 

"  The  Roger  Morris  House,  Washington 
Heights,  near  1 6 1  st  Street."  "  Built  about  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  by  Colonel  Roger 
Morris,  aide-de-camp  to  General  Braddock 
in  the  expedition  against  Fort  Duquesne." 
24 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

In  1776  it  was  the  headquarters  of  General 
Washington,  and  after  the  capture  of  the  is- 
land by  the  British  was  occupied  by  the  Hes- 
sian General  Kniphausen.  In  1779  the 
property  was  sold  under  the  act  of  attainder, 
passed  that  year  by  the  legislature  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  and  passed  out  of  the  posses- 
sion of  the  family.  After  several  changes  of 
ownership  the  house  became  the  property  of 
Stephen  Jumel,  a  French  wine  merchant 
engaged  in  business  in  New  York,  by  whom 
it  was  devised  to  his  widow,  who  afterward 
became  the  wife  of  Aaron  Burr.  It  is  now 
the  residence  of  General  Ferdinand  P.  Earle. 

Publication  No.  5. — The  material  for  the 
next  issue  of  the  Society  was  found  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Roger  Morris  House. 
Hamilton  Grange,  depicted  in  this  plate,  was 
built  by  Alexander  Hamilton  about  1802. 
Only  two  years  later,  July  11,  1 804,  New 
York  was  startled  by  the  appearance  of  a  bul- 
letin announcing  that  General  Hamilton  was 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

shot  that  morning  in  a  duel  by  Colonel  Burr, 
and  was  said  to  be  mortally  wounded.  His 
death  occurred  the  next  afternoon  at  2  o'clock. 
The  "  Grange  "  remained  in  possession  of  the 
family  until  1845.  It  has  lately  been  moved 
a  couple  of  blocks  away  from  its  original  site, 
and  now  stands  at  the  corner  of  141st  street 
and  Convent  avenue.  It  is  at  present  oc- 
cupied as  the  Rectory  of  St.  Luke's  Protest- 
ant Episcopal  Church. 

Publication  No.  6  compels  us  to  retrace 
our  steps  and  turn  our  faces  eastward  to  St. 
Mark's  Church  in  the  Bowery  (Second  ave. 
10th  and  11th  streets).  Next  to  St.  Paul's 
this  is  the  oldest  church  edifice  in  the  city. 
It  was  built  during  the  years  1 795-1 799,  on 
ground  which  formed  a  part  of  the  "  bou- 
wery  "  or  farm  purchased  by  Governor  Stuy- 
vesant  in  1651  for  6,400  guilders,  or  ^1,066, 
and  was  donated  to  the  Episcopal  Church  in 
1793  by  his  great  grandson,  Petrus  Stuyve- 
sant.  The  following  is  copied  from  Dr.  An- 
thon's  Parish  Annals  of  St.  Mark's  Church  : 


26 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

"  Governor  Stuyvesant  arrived  in  this 
country  in  1647.  He  soon  afterwards  pur- 
chased a  farm  which  became  distinctively 
known  as  the  (  Bouwery  '  (the  Dutch  word  for 
farm).  The  Bowery,  the  name  of  one  of 
the  principal  streets  in  our  city,  is  derived  from 
it.  For  the  accommodation  of  his  family  and 
the  few  residents  in  the  neighborhood,  the 
Governor,  at  his  own  expense,  erected  an 
edifice  for  worship  (according  to  the  rites  of 
the  Dutch  Reformed  Church)  on  his  farm,  on 
the  very  site  where  St.  Mark's  Church  now 
stands." 

Publication  No.  7  is  a  View  of  the  City 
Hall  in  the  Park.  Because  of  its  importance 
as  a  municipal  building  as  well  as  on  account 
of  its  satisfactory  character  as  a  piece  of  arch- 
itecture, more  pictures  have  been  made  of  the 
City  Hall  than  of  any  other  of  our  public 
edifices.  Nevertheless,  the  Iconophiles  de- 
cided to  include  it  in  their  series,  doubtless 
upon  the  ground  that  a  collection  of  "  Views 
in  New  York  "  without  the  City  Hall  would 
27 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

resemble  too  much  the  play  of  Hamlet  with 
Hamlet  left  out.  Every  good  citizen  is  pre- 
sumed to  know  that  the  corner  stone  of  the 
City  Hall  was  laid  May  26th,  1803,  and  that 
it  was  finished  in  1 812,  at  a  cost  of  half  a 
million  dollars.  In  the  past  ten  or  twelve 
years  this  building  has  been  repeatedly  threat- 
ened with  demolition  by  our  sage  and  aes- 
thetic city  fathers  ;  but  public  opinion  has 
thus  far  proved  sufficiently  potent  to  avert 
this  fate,  and  the  building  has  not  changed  in 
outward  appearance  since  in  the  year  18 19 
Fitz-Greene  Halleck  entertained  his  fellow 
townsmen  with  this  poetical  description  of  the 
statue  which  then  as  now  surmounted  the  dome 
of  the  City  Hall : 

"  And  on  our  City  Hall  a  'Justice  stands — 

A  neater  form  was  never  made  of  board — 
Holding  majestically  in  her  hands 

A  pair  of  steelyards  and  a  wooden  sword, 
And  looking  down  with  complacent  civility 
Emblem  of  dignity  and  durability" 
28 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  1CONOPHILES 

Publication  No.  8  is  a  u  Prospect  "  of  that 
gloomy  pile  of  buildings,  seldom  if  ever  re- 
ferred to  by  its  proper  name,  "  The  Halls  of 
Justice,"  but  known  in  common  parlance  as 
"  The  Tombs" — an  appropriate  title,  as  it  in- 
dicates its  architectural  origin,  "  An  Egyptian 
tomb,"  as  well  as  the  melancholy  uses  for 
which  it  was  constructed — upon  made  ground 
in  about  the  center  of  what  was  once  the  old 
Collect  pond.  It  came  to  the  ears  of  the 
Iconophiles  that  the  removal  of  this  building 
was  in  contemplation  ;  and  so  they  hastened  to 
make  a  pictorial  note  of  a  structure  which  is 
of  more  profound  interest  to  certain  classes 
in  this  community  than  any  other  building 
belonging  to  the  Municipality,  of  which  un- 
happily they  constitute  neither  useful  nor  or- 
namental members. 

Publication  No.  9  is  a  picture  of  the  Na- 
tional Academy  of  Design.  This  building, 
copied  after  the  Doges'  Palace  in  Venice,  has 
stood  in  the  midst  of  its  incongruous  sur- 
29 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

roundings  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Twenty- 
third  street  and  Fourth  avenue  for  more  than 
thirty  years,  with  the  prosaic  tinkle  of  street- 
car bells  echoing  through  its  vaulted  arches 
in  lieu  of  the  musical  cry  of  the  gay  gondolier. 
It  is  an  unfinished  edifice,  as  the  decoration 
of  the  exterior  has  never  been  completed,  nor 
ever  will  be,  as  the  days  of  this  example  of 
the  "  revived  gothic  order  "  of  architecture 
are  numbered,  and  the  building  will  shortly 
be  razed  to  the  ground  by  its  new  proprietors, 
the  Metropolitan  Life  Insurance  Company 
of  New  York. 

Publication  No.  10  presents  a  view  of  St. 
John's  Chapel.  This  building  was  erected 
during  the  years  1803  to  1807  at  a  cost  of 
about  $200,000.  It  stands  on  the  east  side 
of  Varick  street,  between  Beach  and  Laight, 
and  at  the  time  of  its  erection  fronted  a  park 
known  as  Hudson  Square,  later  as  St.  John's 
Park,8  a  pleasant  enclosure  shaded  with  fine  old 
trees — the  ground  having  at  one  time  formed 
30 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

part  of  the  Anneke  Jans  Bogardus  estate. 
This  park  was  sold  early  in  1 869  to  the  Hud- 
son River  Railroad  Company,  and  a  freight 
station  took  the  place  of  one  of  the  breathing 
spots  with  which  lower  New  York  was  then, 
as  it  is  still,  all  too  scantily  supplied — a  pub- 
lic need  that  we  have  recognized  and  attempted 
to  supply  only  within  the  past  few  years.  It 
is  a  satisfaction  to  feel  that  the  more  enlight- 
ened sense  of  this  community  would  not  now 
regard  with  equanimity  the  blotting  out  of  a 
pleasure  ground  like  this  from  the  map  of 
New  York  City.  Let  us  hope  that  the  time 
may  come  when  public  opinion  will  demand 
the  restoration  of  St.  John's  Park,  and  that 
once  again  through  the  doorways  of  the  old 
church  will  float  the  sound  of  rustling  leaves 
and  the  twittering  of  birds  instead  of  the  roar 
of  wheels  and  the  noise  of  escaping  steam. 
Meanwhile  the  people  of  the  neighborhood 
should  enter  a  protest  against  the  unneces- 
sarily unseemly  appearance  of  the  walls  of  this 

31 


THE  JOURNEY  OF  THE  ICONOPH1LES 

huge,  ungainly  structure,  covered  with  post 
bills  of  every  description  from  end  to  end. 

Publication  No.  1 1  is  a  view  of  the  Fifth 
avenue  front  of  the  Murray  Hill  Distribut- 
ing Reservoir.  The  capacity  of  this  reservoir, 
which  now  plays  so  insignificant  a  part  in  the 
city's  system  of  water  works,  is  20,000,000 
gallons.  As  an  interesting  bit  of  ancient  his- 
tory in  this  connection  we  may  recall  the  pro- 
posal made  by  Christopher  Colles  immediately 
prior  to  the  Revolutionary  war  to  build  a  reser- 
voir on  open  ground  near  the  new  jail  (Pearl 
and  White  streets),  with  a  capacity  of  1,200,- 
000  gallons,  for  furnishing  the  City  of  New 
York  with  a  constant  supply  of  fresh  water. 
Mr.  Colles  enters  into  the  following  calcula- 
tion, "  shewing  the  utility  of  his  design,"  which 
we  quote  because  it  helps  us  to  realize  how 
little  more  than  a  good-sized  village  our  city 
was  so  late  as  1774 : 

"  It  is  supposed  that  there  are  3,000 
Houses  that  receive  Water  from  the  Tea 

3* 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

Water  Men  ;  that  at  the  least,  upon  an  Aver- 
age, each  House  pays  One  Penny  Half-penny 
per  day  for  this  Water ;  this  makes  the  Sum 
of  X^>75°  Per  Annum,  which  is  45s  for  each 
Houfe  per  Annum.  According  to  the  Design 
proposed,  there  will  be  paid  £6,000  per  an- 
num for  four  Years,  which  is  40s  each  House  : 
By  which  it  appears  that  even  while  the  Works 
are  paying  for,  there  will  be  a  saving  made  to 
the  City  of  j£j  50  per  annum,  and  after  the 
said  four  Yeares,  as  the  Tax  will  not  be  more 
than  1  os  per  annum  to  be  paid  by  each  houfe, 
it  is  evident  that  there  will  be  saved  to  the 
city,  the  yearly  sum  of  ,£5,250  for  ever." 
The  Revolutionary  War  interfered  with  the 
consideration  of  this  project. 

Wm.  L.  Stone,  in  his  History  of  New 
York  City,  published  in  1 872,  supplies  a  de- 
scription of  the  Murray  Hill  Reservoir,  an 
abstract  from  which  will  spare  us  the  neces- 
sity of  making  a  new  survey,  and  answer  our 
present  purpose  quite  as  well  if  not  better. 
33 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

"  Its  walls  are  of  dark  granite  and  average 
44  feet  in  height  above  the  adjacent  streets. 
Upon  the  top  of  the  wall,  which  is  reached 
by  massive  steps,  is  a  broad  promenade  from 
which  may  be  obtained  a  fine  view  of  the  sur- 
rounding country.  Perfect  security  for  the  vis- 
itor is  obtained  by  a  strong  battlement  of  gran- 
ite (and  an  iron  railing)  on  the  outside,  and 
an  iron  fence  on  the  inside  nearest  the  water. 
The  water  was  first  let  into  this  building  on 
the  4th  of  July,  1842  (Mr.  Haswell  says  the 
5th),  and  on  the  14th  of  the  following  October 
distributed  by  means  of  iron  pipes  through- 
out the  city." 

The  public  celebration,  which  was  held 
upon  this  occasion,  rivaled  in  its  pageantry 
the  great  "jubilee,"  which  upon  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Erie  Canal  in  1825  (October  26th) 
"  married  this  city  to  the  mighty  west,"  or  the 
grand  procession  which,  in  1788,  celebrated 
the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution. 

The  view  from  the  promenade  is  not  now 
so  extensive  as  above  described,  by  reason  of 

34 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

the  tall  buildings  erected  in  the  neighborhood 
in  recent  years,  and  a  luxuriant  growth  of  the 
ampelopsis  vine  hides  and  beautifies  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  year  most  of  the  som- 
ber granite  walls  of  the  structure.  The  build- 
ing will  probably  ere  long  be  removed,  and  the 
ground  become  the  site  (unexcelled  in  New 
York  for  such  a  purpose)  of  the  New  York 
Public  Library  —  that  combination  latelv 
effected  between  the  Astor,  Lenox  and  Til- 
den  foundations,  the  formation  of  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  the  tendency  toward  concen- 
tration of  effort  which  is  the  drift  of  the  times. 

Publication  No.  12  and  last,  "  The  Bowl- 
ing Green." — This  small  circular  park,  orig- 
inally used  as  a  ball  and  quoit  ground  by  the 
good  folk  of  New  Amsterdam,  was  laid  out  in 
1733,  when  by  a  city  ordinance  it  was  "  Re- 
solved that  the  Corporation  lease  a  piece  of 
ground  lying  at  the  lower  end  of  Broadway 
fronting  the  Fort,  under  the  annual  rent  of  a 
peppercorn." 

On  May  17th,  1770,  an  equestrian  statue 
35 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

of  George  III.  was  ordered  to  be  erected  in 
the  "  Bowling  Green."  This  statue  was  cut 
off  in  the  very  flower  of  its  youth.  On  July 
8th,  1776,  amid  shouts  and  the  ringing  of 
liberty  bells,  it  was  destroyed  by  the  populace, 
and  the  lead  of  which  it  was  composed  cast 
into  bullets.  This  is  a  thrice-told  tale  and, 
like  a  number  which  are  narrated  in  connection 
with  Fraunces's  Tavern,  is  rather  withered 
by  age  and  battered  by  repetition.  These 
stock  stories  of  old  New  York  are  standard 
goods,  kept  constantly  on  hand  and  must  be 
expected  to  become  occasionally  a  little  stale 
and  shop-worn.  The  only  statue  that  has  been 
admitted  within  this  enclosure  since  the  sum- 
mary ejectment  of  the  leaden  effigy  of  King 
George  is  one  of  Abraham  de  Peyster,  re- 
cently erected  in  the  southwest  corner  of  the 
little  park. 

The  block  of  seven  houses  seen  in  the 
picture   fronting  the    Bowling  Green,  was 
erected  upon  the  site  of  the  old  Fort  and 
36 


THE  JOURNEY   OF  THE  ICONOPHILES 

Government  House, 9  which  latter  building 
was  removed  in  1815.  For  many  years  these 
houses  ranked  among  the  finest  and  most 
fashionable  private  residences  in  the  city ; 
but  they  have  long  been  given  over  to  busi- 
ness purposes.  They  are  at  present  occupied 
mostly  by  the  offices  of  various  Transatlantic 
steamship  companies,  and  of  foreign  consu- 
lates. On  the  right  of  the  picture  we  have 
a  glimpse  of  the  Battery  and  the  waters  of 
the  Bay. 

Here  at  the  southernmost  point  of  the  is- 
land the  Iconophiles  break  their  journey.  The 
Society  has  decreed  that  the  twelve  plates  now 
issued  shall  constitute  a  series.  The  first  stage 
of  its  antiquarian  and  sentimental  journey 
therefore  is  completed,  so  we  close  the  leaves 
of  our  sketch-book  and  wend  our  way  home- 
wards over  the  "  Battery  walk,"  that  "  pleas- 
ant promenade,"  still  the  "  ornament  and  the 
pride  of  the  island  of  Manna-hatta  "  as  it  has 
ever  been  since  the  day  when  the  corpulent 
37 


THE  JOURNEY   OF   THE  ICONOPHILES 

Dutch  burgher  first  peacefully  puffed  his 
long-stemmed  pipe  in  the  afternoon  shade  of 
its  drooping  willows  and  wide-spreading  syc- 
amores, and  through  the  encircling  wreaths  of 
smoke  gazed  dreamily  upon  the  "noblest  pros- 
pect in  the  whole  known  world." 

Envoy. 

In  parting  company  for  a  time  at  least  with 
the  fifty  subscribers  to  our  illustrated  itinerary, 
we  trust  that  these  fellow  tourists  of  ours 
have  found  the  pilgrimage  an  instructive  one, 
are  not  travel-stained  and  weary,  and  have  en- 
joyed equally  with  their  guides,  the  Icono- 
philes,  this  ramble  around  the  streets  of  our 
fair  City  of  New  York. 

William  Loring  Andrews. 


3* 


NOTES  AND  LISTS 
OF  NEW  YORK  VIEWS 


NOTES  AND  LISTS 
OF  NEW  YORK  VIEWS 


NOTE  I 

THE  u  New  York  Mirror"  was  founded  in 
1824  by  Saml.  Woodworth,  the  author 
of  the  "  Old  Oaken  Bucket,"  and  continued  by 
Geo.  P.  Morris,  N.  P.  Willis  and  Theo.  S.  Fay. 
Many  of  the  fine  engravings  in  this  Journal  were 
the  work  of  Asher  B.  Durand  and  James  Smillie. 
The  full  page  illustrations  average  about  9x6 
inches  in  size.  The  prints  marked  "  S  "  are 
vignettes,  six  on  a  sheet,  eighteen  in  all. 


VIEWS  IN  AND  ABOUT  NEW  YORK 


Bay  and  Harbor  of  New  York  from  Staten  Island  . 

Vol.  xv., 

1838 

Bay  and  Harbor  of  New  York  from  the  Battery 

u  viii., 

183, 

Bowery  Theater  ...... 

M  vi., 

1828 

Bowling  Green  ...... 

"  viii., 

1830 

Brick  Church,  Beekman  Street  (S) 

«  vii., 

1829 

Brooklyn  Collegiate  Institute  for  young  ladies  (lith- 

ograph )  

M  viii., 

1830 

Christ  Church  (S)  

"  vii., 

1829 

City  Hall  

"  v» 

1828 

City  Hall  (old)  in  Wall  Street  

"  ix., 

1831 

Columbia  College  ...... 

14  vi., 

1828 

First  Presbyterian  Church,  Wall  Street  (S) 

"  vii., 

1829 

Grace  Church  (S)  

"  vii., 

1829 

41 


NOTES  AND  LISTS  OF  NEW  YORK.  VIEWS 


Jews'  Synagogue,  Elm  Street  (S) 

"  vii., 

1829 

Lafayette  Theater  ...... 

"  v., 

1828 

Lunatic  Asylum,  Bloomingdale  .... 

"  xi., 

1834 

Merchants'  Exchange  (S)  . 

"  vii., 

1829 

Masonic  Hall  [b) 

"  vii., 

1529 

Middle  Dutch  Church,  Nassau  Street  . 

44  vii., 

1829 

New  York  from  Brooklyn  Heights  .  . 

"  xi., 

1834 

New  York,  from  rsedloe  s  Island  .... 

44  xiv., 

1837 

New  York  from  Jersey  City  .... 

41  viii., 

1831 

New  York  Institution  for  the  Instruction   of  the 

Deaf  and  Dumb  ..... 

"  xiii., 

1835 

North  Battery,  foot  of  Hubert  Street 

"  xi., 

1833 

rMortn  L>utcn  L-nurcn,  William  btreet  yb) 

vii., 

1 029 

Old  Times  on  Broadway  ..... 

"  xiv., 

1836 

Palisades  (The)  View  on  the  Hudson 

4  4  xvi., 

1838 

Park  Row  ....... 

"  viii., 

1830 

Presbyterian  Church,  Cedar  Street  (S) 

"  vii., 

1829 

Reformed  Presbyterian  Church,  Murray  Street  (S)  . 

44  vii., 

1 829 

Rotunda  (The),  Chamber  Street  (S) 

"  vii., 

1829 

South  Dutch  Church,  Exchange  Place  (S) 

44  vii., 

1829 

St.  George's  Church  (S)  

"  vii., 

1829 

St.  John's  Chapel  ...... 

u  vi., 

1829 

St.  Mark  s  Cnurcn  (S)  ..... 

"  vii., 

I  0  29 

St.  Paul's  Chapel  

"  v-> 

1828 

St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  (S)  .... 

"  vii., 

1829 

St.  Thomas's  Church  

"  vi., 

1829 

Trinity  Church  

44  v., 

1828 

U.  S.  Branch  Bank  (S)  

14  vii., 

1829 

Unitarian  Church,  Mercer  Street  (S) 

"  vii., 

1829 

Wall  Street  

"  ix., 

1832 

Weehawken  . 

44  X., 

1833 

Wood  Scene  near  Hoboken  .... 

"  x> 

1832 

In  addition  to  the  views  above  enumerated  the 
"  New  York  Mirror  "  contains  finely  engraved  por- 


42 


NOTES  AND  LISTS  OF  NEW  YORK  VIEWS 


traits  of  the  following  literary  and  dramatic  celebrities 
of  the  day  :  James  H.  Hackett,  N.  P.  Willis, 
Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  Washington  Irving,  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  Charles  S.  Sprague,  Miss  C.  M. 
Sedgewick  and  Prosper  M.  Wetmore. 

NOTE  II 

Titles  of  plates  in"  Bourne's  Views,"  quarto. 
Size  of  print  3*/x2^  (two  on  a  page),  all  but 
u  New  York  from  Weehawk,"  which  is  5^x3^. 


American  Hotel,  Broadway 
Bay  and  Harbor  of  New  York 
Bower)'  Theater 
Bowling  Green,  New  York 
Brooklyn  Ferry,  Fulton  Street 
Church  of  the  Ascension,  Canal  St. 
City  Hotel 
Clinton  Hall 

Council  Chamber,  City  Hall 
Custom  House,  Wall  Street 
Exchange  PI.,  looking  to  Hanover 
Street 

Grace  and  Trinity  Churches 
Junction  of  B'wayand  the  Battery 
Landing  place  foot  of  Barclay  St. 
Landing  place  foot  ofCourtlandt  St. 
Mansion  House  (Bunker's),  B'way 
Masonic  Hall,  Broadway 
Merchants'  Exchange,  Wall  St. 


New  York  from  Weehawk 
Park  Place,  New  York 
Park  Theater  and  part  of  Park 
Row 

Phenix  Bank,  Wall  Street 
Public   Room,    Merchants'  Ex- 
change 

St. George's  Church,  Beekman  St. 
St.  Luke's  Church,  Hudson  St. 
St.  Paul's  Church,  Broadway 
St  Patrick's  Cathedral,  Mott  St. 
St.  Peter's  Church,  Barclay  St. 
St.  Thomas'  Church,  Broadway 
Steamboat  Wharf,  Battery  Place 
Steamboat  Wharf,  Whitehall  St. 
The  Reservoir,  Bowery 
Unitarian  Church,  Mercer  St. 
U.  S.  Branch  Bank, Wall  St. 
Washington  Hotel,  Broadway 


Two  plates  not  published  in  the  set  are 

Franklin  Market,  Old  Slip  Broadway  and  Fulton  Street 


4; 


NOTES  AND  LISTS  OF  NEW  YORK  VIEWS 


NOTE  III 

"  Peabody's  Views,"  quarto.  Size  of  the  prints 
(two  on  a  page),  5)^x3^,  all  except  the  following, 
which  are  about  two  inches  square  and  are  three  to 
five  on  a  page,  viz.:  The  Exchange,  Masonic  Hall, 
Rotunda,  U.  S.  Branch  Bank,  St.  George's,  Grace, 
St.  Thomas's  and  Second  Unitarian  Churches,  St. 
Patrick's  Cathedral,  Washington  Hotel  and  Bowery 
Theater. 


Bowery  Theater,  New  York 
Bowling  Green 

Broad  Street,  Custom  House  in  dis- 
tance 

Broadway  from  the  Park 

Coffee  House  Slip,  foot  of  Wall  St. 

City  Hall 

City  Hotel,   Grace   and  Trinity 

Churches 
Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum 
Elysian  Fields,  Hoboken 
Grace  Church,  Broadway 
Holt's  New  Hotel,  corner  Fulton 

and  Water  Streets 
Hudson  River  from  Hoboken 
Leroy  Place 

Lunatic  Asylum,  Manhattanville 
Masonic  Hall,  Broadway 
Merchants'  Exchange,  Wall  St. 
Merchants'     Room,  Exchange, 
Wall  Street 


Navy  Yard 
New  York 

Park  Theater,  Park  Row,  Tam- 
many Hall  in  the  distance 

Pearl  Street  and  Ohio  Hotel,  Han- 
over Square  in  the  distance 

Presbyterian  Church,  Carmine  St. 

Residence  of  Philip  Hone,  Esq. 

Rotunda,  Chambers  Street 

St.  George's  Church,  Beekman 
Street 

St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  Mott  St. 

St.  Thomas's  Church,  Broadway 

Second  Unitarian  Church,  Mer- 
cer corner  of  Prince  Street 

Shot  Tower,  East  River 

U.  S.  Branch  Bank,  Wall  Street 

Washington  Institute  and  City 
Reservoir 

Webb's  Congress  Hall,  142  B'way 


44 


NOTES  AND  LISTS  OF  NEW  YORK  VIEWS 
NOTE  IV 

Blunt's  "Stranger's  Guide,"  i2mo.  Size  of 
prints  about  3^x2^. 

Alms  House  South  Street  near  Dover  Street 

City  Hall  State  Prison 

Coffee  House  Slip  United  States  Branch  Bank 

NOTE  V 

Goodrich's  "Picture  of  New  York,"  1 2mo. 
Size  of  prints  about  3^x2^. 

*CofTee  House  Slip  Park  Theater 

Exchange  *South  Street  near  Dover  Street 

Fulton  Market  *United  States  Branch  Bank 

View  of  Broadway  near  Grace  Church 


NOTE  VI 

Nichol's  "New  York  Illustrated,"  8vo.  Size 
of  plates  3^x2^  inch,  except  the  vignette  on  title 
and  the  plates,  of  which  measurement  is  given. 


Bellevue  Hospital 
Bowling  Green  Fountain 
City  Hall,  S'A^H 
Custom  House,  present  Sub-Treas'y 
Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum 
Dutch  Church,  Murray  Street 
Hall  of  Records 

Merchants'  Exchange,  sHxlH 

Trinity  Church,  upright  view,  5^x3^ 
*  Note.  Same  plate  as  in  Blunt's  "  Stranger's  Guide." 


New  York  from  Governor's  Is- 
land (vignette) 
Post  Office  (old   Middle  Dutch 
Church) 

Scotch  Presbyterian  Church, corner 

Grand  and  Crosby  Streets 
St.  Paul's  and  the  Astor  House 


45 


NOTES  AND  LISTS  OF  NEW  YORK  VIEWS 


NOTE  VII 

Plates  in  "  New  York,  Past,  Present  and  Fu- 
ture," added  to  those  taken  from  "  New  York 
Illustrated "  (Trinity  and  the  Dutch  Church  in 
Murray  street  are  omitted). 

American  Museum  Distributing  Reservoir,  42nd  St. 

Aqueduct  Bridge  Park  Fountain 

Baptist  Church,  corner  Broome  and    Receiving  Reservoir 

Elizabeth  Streets  Universalist  Church,  Mercer  St. 

NOTE  VIII 

"ST.  JOHN'S  PARK "  (AS  IT  WAS) 

M  St.  John's  Park,"  a  highly  ornamented  en- 
closure of  about  four  acres,  situated  in  front  of  St. 
John's  Church,  and  bounded  by  Hudson,  Laight, 
Varick  and  Beach  streets.  It  stands  in  the  name 
of  the  Corporation  of  Trinity  Church,  though  it  is 
virtually  the  property  of  the  surrounding  owners 
and  its  privileges  are  confined  to  the  proprietors  and 
such  others  as  are  permitted  on  their  recommenda- 
tion to  hire  keys  at  the  annual  charge  of  ten  dollars. 
It  is  surrounded  by  an  iron  fence,  contains  a  most 
beautiful  fountain,  and  is  more  abundantly  supplied 
with  shrubs  and  flowers  than  any  other  park  in 
the  city. — From  "  New  York,  Past,  Present  and 
Future." 


46 


NOTES  AND  LISTS  OF  NEW  YORK  VIEWS 
NOTE  IX 

THE  GOVERNMENT  HOUSE 
The  Government  House  was  erected  in  1790 
on  the  site  of  Fort  George,  at  the  foot  of  Broad- 
way, facing  the  Bowling  Green.  It  was  originally 
designed  for  the  residence  of  General  Washington 
(then  President  of  the  United  States),  but  never 
occupied  by  him.  It  afterwards  became  the  resi- 
dence of  Governors  George  Clinton  and  John 
Jay.  It  was  used  for  the  Custom  House  from  the 
year  1799  until  181 5,  when  it  was  taken  down. 


4- 


THE  ICONOPHILES 


W.  L.  Andrews 
S.  P.  Avery 
E.  H.  Bierstadt* 
Beverly  Chew 
C.  B.  Footf 
W.  F.  Havemeyer 
E.  B.  Holden 
R.  H.  Lawrence 
M.  C.  Lefferts 
J.  Harsen  Purdy 


*Died  December  19th,  1896 
Succeeded  by 

J.  S.  Morgan 


THE  JOURNEY  OF 
THE  ICONOPHILES 

AROUND   NEW  YORK  IN 
SEARCH    OF  THE 
HISTORICAL 
AND  PICTUR- 
ESQUE 


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